


The Darkest of Sins

by AceMoppet



Category: The Scarlet Letter - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Thing for School, poetic prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 21:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13280013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceMoppet/pseuds/AceMoppet
Summary: All good people are afraid of the dark.





	The Darkest of Sins

**Author's Note:**

> So this was for a little mini project we did at school. I'm usually not this poetic with my prose, and it was kinda fun to just let myself go and not worry about how purple my prose was getting. I actually liked how this turned out, so I decided to put this up here once it was graded. Cheers!

All good people are afraid of the dark. At least, that is what I have known. It was never stated in the Bible; the dark was God’s creation after all, so why should one be afraid of it? And yet, why should one not be afraid of it? It conceals the monsters, the ones who gnash their teeth at the thought of goodness. It covers the sins of the depraved, the ones who have turned their backs on God. The dark of the night is where witches and goblins and demons gather, where evil festers like a sore on the world.

For most of my life, I had been afraid of the dark, like the good Christian everyone, including I, believed me to be. I would go to bed early in order to avoid the shadows of evil, only staying up if there had been some urgent clergy matter. When I would have to walk outside in the night, I would take my brightest light, not only to see my path, but to ward off the evil that was practically a cloying, tangible thing in the black of the night. I would flourish in the day and hide myself behind my doors at night.

This all changed when I met Hester Prynne. From that first meeting, where I saw the spark in her, the being that was neither a girl or a true woman, where I felt her call out to some hidden spark in me, was the day of my undoing. From then on, my nights were plagued with thoughts of her. The natural torment of a burning infatuation plus the anguish of said object of affection being married to another had to come to a head one day. And when it did, the light was explosive enough to chase away the night.

I no longer feared the nights; why would I, when Hester Prynne was with me, and her light was enough to chase the evils of the night away? Rather, I dreaded the morning light, where all our combined shame was bared and judged harshly by the sunlight streaming through the windows.

There was a time after our trysts, when she was accused of adultery and I hid in the background like the lame coward I am, that neither the dark of night nor the light of day could comfort me. The night held too many sweet memories of her, while the day brought my guilt into full force, especially when people would praise me for being the most truthful pastor. Their earnest faces and words cut deep, and the wounds never scarred over at night; how could they, when I picked at every single one of them, eschewing sleep altogether?

Now, finally, as I stand on the scaffold where Hester, my dear Hester, stood seven years hence, with only our her baby in her arms for comfort, I feel a semblance of peace once more, or is it insanity? My time on the scaffold is different from hers, for where she stood bravely in the light of judgement and the heat of criticism, I stand here like a coward in the night, hiding in the shadows and taking cold comfort from the darkness. I can say now, I am one of the depraved, whose sins are too great to bear, so they turn from the light and embrace the dark that hides their sins from all save themself. 

I scream so loudly, like I’ve been wanting to do for more than seven years. Still, no one hears me. Or perhaps they do, but they ignore me, thinking away the noise as a figment of their darkest imaginations.   
Suddenly, a light! It is the Reverend Wilson, making his way towards me! Is he coming for me, like some great angel with a beacon of fire, one of God’s holy avengers of sin? Ah, no, now I recall him saying that he would be at Governor Winthrop’s death bed this night to provide comfort in his last moments. 

None of that helps me now however. He walks ever closer, and the lamp in his hand, though tiny, illuminates the world around it, casting the grimy, rocky streets in a harsh yellow glow. If this is what it can do to the streets, who are dirty after years and years of faithful toil, what might it do to me, the sinner who pretends to be close to God’s ear? My trembling increases as he comes closer, and I think, half-hysterically, to call out to him to come join me up on the scaffold. After all, if I have sinned and am still regarded in the town as holy, then what burdens might he have? The idea is appealing, two supposedly holy men sharing their miserable sins in the dark of the night, but by the time this thought occurs to me, he has passed me by without even a glance.

He did not even think to look! No one ever thinks to look, to hear, especially not in the dull night. I laugh brazenly, emboldened by relief, but freeze as I hear the laugh echoed back at me in the silver-bell voice of a child. There can be only one person who laughs like this.

“Pearl! Little Pearl!”

The giggling intensifies. I smile to hear the joyously light laughs. But then again, where there is little Pearl, there must also be…

“Hester Prynne! Are you there?” I call.

“Yes,” comes her immediate response, as if it was punched out of her by surprise.

“Where are you coming from, Hester and little Pearl? Why are you here?”

Hester speaks, telling me that she had been at Governor Winthrop’s death bed too. Her voice, though hesitant at first, is clear like the moonlight, not as harsh as the sun nor as burning as the lamp, but soft, comforting. 

“Hester, little Pearl,” I ask quietly, hopefully, “Might you both join me up here on this scaffold?”. Silence. The seconds stretch out into the yawning black of the night, punctuated by my ragged, pleading breaths and pounding heart beats. And then…

Two pairs of feet come closer, one slow and steady like a beating drum, the other light and dancing like a fluttering hummingbird. They climb up the steps, and as they reach me, I fumble in the dark for their hands, suddenly desperate to not be alone in the dark. As I slip my hand into little Pearl’s, a sense of completeness washes over me. Finally, I am together with the family that could’ve been mine, had things been different. The dark protects us from the judgemental world around us, and perhaps even from God himself. There are no eyes to see this beautiful, sinlessful meeting in the dark between mother, father, and child in this dark night. When the sun comes up, the light will divide us, and we will have to let go and go back to what places society deems right for us. For now though, we hold on as tight as we can in the quiet peace of the night.

All good people are afraid of the dark. And yet, with little Pearl and Hester Prynne by my side, how could I be afraid?


End file.
